January 29, 2016

Murdoch's back at the helm at Sky

It's like phone hacking never happened...
James Murdoch has been appointed as the Chairman of Sky, increasing the influence of the Murdoch dynasty as the UK's leading pay TV empire. Full story at The Guardian. I'd expect Rupert Murdoch to make another attempt to take over the whole of Sky now, and it's not like a British government is going to stand in his way, is it?
In recent times the relationship between Sky and Virgin Media has been pretty amicable; VM needs the Sky channels and content and, aside from Sky Atlantic, pretty much has it and in HD too, and Sky benefits from the audience of 4m Virgin Media households.
With TV services I don't think Sky has regarded VM as a serious commercial rival for many years, more a partner where they always have the upper hand. Besides, Sky seems to have turned its heavy artillery on BT and Netflix/Amazon these days, which makes Virgin a useful little brother in the content battles ahead.